Child Prodigy
by TalysAlankil
Summary: When Elsa's magic went out of control, her parents went to the only person they thought could help—the Dark One, Rumplestiltskin.


Inspired by the teaser from the Once Upon A Time Season 3 finale and my own speculation of the implications. This is my imagining of how the show could spin the tale (but I don't actually expect it to go this way!)

* * *

"Do the magic! Do the magic!"

It was almost part of Elsa's morning routine, ever since Anna had been old enough to sneak into her older sister's room: she would wake her up, ask to play, and bring her to the great hall whose purpose Elsa didn't quite understand, but was perfect to turn into a wintry landscape in the early morning. For about an hour, Elsa would create all the snow and ice they needed to play, imagining themselves as adventurers and explorers, as villagers like those travelers who delivered ice from the mountains to Arendelle's palace, or just as two little girls in the winter when the summer heat was too much to bear. And it always started with those words.

_Do the magic_. Elsa was eight years old now, old enough to hear some of the servants whispering around her and to understand their words. Magic did not have the best of reputations in most of the Enchanted Forest, and Arendelle was no exception. Sorcerers and witches always seemed to take precedence over fairies and mages in popular consciousness, and Elsa was beginning to question herself. She was finally able to read without a preceptor around to help, and all she found out was that magic, even for those with an inborn talent, required practice, control, and years of training. Did that mean her powers were different? That perhaps she was not a sorceress? But what if she was something worse?

Those thoughts never occurred to her in the morning, however. Not when Anna laughed and squealed with delight; surely nothing bad could come out of something that could bring this much _joy_.

Perhaps she'd been blind to her true nature. When her magic hit Anna's head instead of the ground at her feet, all her doubts had come rushing back as she screamed for her parents' help.

* * *

"I know where we have to go," her father had said. They left at once, with Anna's cold and lifeless body, departing before the sun had even risen. They rode through the forest and to the mountains, and Elsa barely realized that she was leaving a trail of frost behind her.

They reached their destination in a matter of hours: a castle, not as high or majestic as the palace of Arendelle, but large and imposing, standing in sinister woods. The gates opened for them, pulled by an invisible force, and Elsa's parents barely showed a moment of hesitation before barging in.

"King Agdar and Queen Idun of Arendelle," a high-pitched voice greeted them, echoing from the darkness above them in the vast entrance hall.

"Rumplestiltskin," her father replied. "We have come to seek your help. Whatever your price will be, I am ready to pay it."

A snicker echoed in answer, and a man materialized before them. Or, at least, Elsa assumed he was a man—his demeanor and clothes were human, belonging to a sophisticated nobleman, but his scaly skin and reptilian eyes were nothing like she'd ever seen before. The name found its way through Elsa's memories of all her readings, and she knew who he was. The Dark One. A shiver ran down her spine, and it had nothing to do with the ice that was still spreading from around her feet.

Hearing her gasp, Rumplestiltskin turned to her—fixating those eyes on her. "Born with the powers, or cursed?"

"Born," her father said. "A-And they're getting stronger."

"I see." His gaze remained fixated on Elsa, unblinking, unsettling, terrifying.

"Dark One, our youngest daughter—" Elsa's mother started.

"—Is done for. There is nothing I can do for her." Ignoring the shock of Elsa's father and the horrified gasp of her mother as she clenched her arms around Anna's body, he added, "But I can help you with this one. Make sure this… accident doesn't happen again."

"How?" Elsa's question was barely audible. She wasn't even sure how she'd managed to speak, not after what he'd said. Anna was gone? By her fault?

"By teaching you to control it, of course." He held out a hand. "But…"

Elsa's dad understood the meaning of his dramatic pause. "Your price. What will it be?"

"Nothing much, really. A security precaution you should have taken anyway. Make sure to lock her up in your castle, reduce the staff, and make sure no one can approach her without your permission. If no one finds out, no one can be hurt."

"And when I can control it, I can get out?"

A sickly sweet smile formed on Rumplestiltskin's lips. "Of course, dearie. Otherwise I would just… kill you now and be done with it."

"Very well," the king said. "We will do as you say, Dark One."

"Good. Then let me speak to her for a few minutes. This will be… our first lesson."

Elsa's parents looked in no hurry to leave their daughter alone with the man. Rumplestiltskin waved at them in annoyance, and they hurried backwards, fearing that a spell was coming—but thankfully, they were safe.

When they were out of earshot, the Dark One turned to Elsa once more. "Now, listen to me, Elsa." Elsa was barely surprised that he knew her name when no one had mentioned it to him. "Your power will only grow, so you need to be careful. The key to controlling your magic is your emotions. Fear will be your worst enemy, dearie. Like an unbearable weight on your shoulders. You can carry it and let it crush you… or you can let it crush _others_!" A mad fit of laughter followed Rumplestiltskin's declaration, making Elsa flinch back.

"I don't want to hurt anyone!" she said.

"But you will. It is in your _nature_. Accept it, and at least those who get hurt may deserve it."

* * *

The first lesson has stuck with Elsa, and in spite of her constant refusal to follow Rumplestiltskin's advice, he had kept going to teach her as he promised. He and her parents were her only company—the servants' rotation had been cleverly organized so that they would never cross paths with her, or even enter the rooms of the castle that she froze until the ice melted.

But ever since Anna's death, control had been resolutely out of reach. The Dark One had been right: fear was her worst enemy. But how could she be as carefree as she once was, knowing that being carefree had killed Anna in the first place?

Elsa's parents dying in a storm was the final nail in the coffin of her solitude. She didn't know who kept the palace staff organized—Rumplestiltskin, probably—and she no longer cared. Her studying went beyond what the Dark One could provide her, and she researched more heavily than she ever had in her life.

Until, the day of her coronation, three years after her parents' death—thirteen years after Anna's death—she found something. A small tidbit of information, one she had probably read dozens of times and always overlooked. Doubt settled in, but there was no time to discuss it with her teacher. He wouldn't even be here for days.

Or so she thought. Rumplestiltskin showed up at the coronation ceremony, resplendent as ever, and during the following ball, she managed to escape the crowd who was so anxious to meet their seclusive new queen, and talk to him alone.

"Rumplestiltskin. Have you been hiding something to me?"

His face was a picture of innocence. "Dearie, I don't give you a full record of my activities, you'll have to be more specific."

"About magic. Did you keep some of your teachings from me?"

"That's preposterous. What exactly could I have kept from you?"

"True love." The words caused the exact kind of shock Elsa had expected, but Rumplestiltskin soon regained his composure.

"Yes, true love. An elusive form of magic, difficult to control. What about it?"

"It can break any curse, can't it?"

Rumplestiltskin paused. "Certainly."

"It could save me."

The Dark One's characteristic laughter was the only reply she got at first. "I suppose, dearie. But, from monster to monster, let me be honest: who would love _you_?"

_No one_, a part of her whispered. After all, no one did—no one even knew her, except for a creature who called himself the 'Dark One'. But she knew it was wrong. "Anna did."

"Who's Anna? The kitchen maid we fired? I wasn't aware you knew the staff."

"Anna! My sister! The one you said we couldn't save! But we could have, couldn't we? _I_ loved her too. I could have saved her! If you hadn't said there was no hope—"

"I said _I_ couldn't do anything to help, and I couldn't."

"So is that what this is about? One of your finely-worded contracts? I thought—" What exactly had she thought? She'd read about the Dark One, she'd always known she couldn't trust him. So why had she let him have the final word on Anna's life? Why had her parents?

"Deep down, you know, dearie," Rumplestiltskin said, echoing her thoughts. "You let it happen too."

"Of course not!"

"I always told you. It's in your nature to hurt others; you let your fear crush you, or let it crush others. Back then you chose to let it crush Anna instead of you."

"Enough!" Anything to shut up Rumplestiltkin—and 'anything' took the form of an attempt to slap him. He caught her arm before she could hit him, and when she tried to pull away from his grasp, her glove remained stuck in his hand.

Rumplestiltskin was barely perturbed by the interruption. "If only you were sensible enough to make that choice again, it would save us all this troub—"

"I said enough!" Anger channeled into power and flowed through her now bare hand, free from the relative protection her gloves gave her. Magic burst from her fingers, rushing through the air towards Rumplestiltskin; ice spikes emerged from the floor, and the temperature suddenly dropped, but the Dark One merely gave another snicker and vanished in a puff of smoke.

He reappeared a little further from Elsa, a confident smirk on his face. "Well, better late than never! Maybe there's hope for you yet."

"It's your fault if she died!"

"It's really your fault, I merely stood by. Now, with your parents' deaths—"

A scream escaped Elsa's throat, and power erupted from her entire body, more than she'd ever wielded before. It was out of control before it had even begun, and the wave spread, further and further, freezing everything in its path—food, drinks, furniture, marble. Even some of the flames were frozen solid. And so were the guests. The power didn't seem to stop when it hit the walls, but Elsa couldn't even think about that, horrified at the scene.

There was, however, another survivor. "At last! You finally did it!" Rumplestiltskin, more arrogant than ever, strolling around the frozen ballroom.

Elsa ignored him rushed to the windows, clearing the frost with her bare hand, to look upon a desolation. The vibrant city of Arendelle, known for its warm summers, was covered in ice and snow. She could see people in the street: they were not all frozen solid, like the guests here in the ballroom, but even from a distance she could see that they were panicking.

"Now, how about you come to my castle so I can teach your properly? I have great plans for you, and we've lost enough time as it is!"

"Will you stop it? I'm _never_ going to be your apprentice. I will never be anything you want me to be!"

"Well you certainly aren't going to be a decent queen, either," Rumplestiltskin said. There was a loud pounding on the ballroom's doors, and the Dark One vanished as the door was forced open by soldiers.

"What happened here—" one of them said, before his eyes fell on Elsa. He likely did not recognize her, but he did recognize the crown. "Your Majesty?" His voice was devoid of any sort of deference, in spite of the honorifics—there was only fear and shock.

Fear would crush her, Rumplestiltskin had said. She understood it now. It wasn't her own fear he meant, but others'. Before the soldiers could decide on a course of action, Elsa knew what to do: she ran towards the secondary door, near the throne—_her _throne—and escaped. Guards ran after her, but she knew the palace better than anyone, and reached the fjord in no time.

With only a moment's hesitation, she jumped over the water—and it froze under her feet. One of the soldiers attempted to run after her, but the ice broke from under him, and none of the other soldiers tried to follow.

* * *

She found refuge in the north mountains, ironically near the Dark Palace where Rumplestiltskin had just invited her. But she would not give in to him—she refused it.

In the isolation of the mountain, she would teach herself. Already she had managed to build her own castle out of ice. Her powers would only grow, he'd once said—and someday, she knew it, it would be strong enough to take her revenge. Only one thing could stop her—her own fears, her past, her regrets. Grief had never brought her anything useful anyway. So, focused on her newfound goal, she did the only thing she could of her past.

She let it go.


End file.
